All hail the Frito pie

MARENE GUSTIN

Published
7:00 pm CDT, Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Phillip Mitchell is the co-owner and executive chef of Bistro Calais, an eatery in Houston's River Oaks neighborhood known for its duck confit and escargots sautés à l'ail. But while growing up in Houston's Third Ward, Mitchell, like most Texans, ate more basic fare.

"Chili, chips, maybe some jalapenos and cheese," he reminisced. "We'd get it at the school cafeteria or make 'em at home. We were kids just walking around the street and eating it from a plastic bowl."

Whether you ate the iconic Frito pie in it's bag (the original way) or from a plastic bowl - or, nowadays, from a china bowl at an upscale comfort eatery - it's still just chili and chips. Fritos corn chips, of course.

The origin of the popular pie dates back almost to the beginning of Elmer Doolin's Frito company in San Antonio in 1932. Legend has it that his mom, Daisy Doolin, concocted the dish in her kitchen, which is where she made the corn massa chips with a potato crisper, following a recipe her son had bought for $100. Other reports suggest it came from a recipe contest the Frito company held in the '30s.

Whatever the origin, Frito pies became the popular portable food of Texas, sold everywhere from the State Fair to Friday night football games, Sonic drive-ins to Dairy Queens.

"Growing up in East Texas in the early '70s, Frito pie was the ultimate convenience food," said Kimberly Parks, who runs a public relations company specializing in restaurants and food. Her recipe for Frito pie is specific: "Slice open a bag of Fritos - horizontally, and not at the seam. Add hot chili - it was always Wolf Brand Chili - shredded cheddar cheese and chopped onions, and that's it. Eat it right out of the bag."

Of course, it's perfectly acceptable to sit down and eat Frito pie from a bowl. Over at the Avalon Diner, also in River Oaks, Frito pie has been on the menu almost since the diner opened in 1938. Just $2.95 a cup or $4.75 for a hearty bowl, it's a meal in itself, made with Original Fritos Corn Chips, homemade chili, grated cheese and white onion.

Still in Texas but now based in Plano, the 75-year-old Frito-Lay company (corn chips married potato chips in 1945) has around 70 percent of the corn-chip market in America, last year selling one billion bags of them. The company can't say how many Frito pies that translates to - but it's a lot.

Of course, not everyone has a Frito pie story. Particularly if they're transplants to Texas.

"I've never heard of it," said Houston Grand Opera's general director and CEO, Anthony Freud, a London native. "Oh, maybe I should try one! It sounds great and I want to immerse myself in everything Texas."